They're just plowing through
by digby
If you wonder how the Republicans got themselves into this Kavanaugh mess, this gives you a good idea. In a nutshell, they don't give a damn about women, the truth, or anything but their own power:
Imagine if Brett Kavanaugh had offered his emotional, tearful, you-ruined-my-life opening speech to the Judiciary Committee — and then called for a quick FBI probe to clear his name and perhaps find the true assailant. He would have looked confident, humble, even a tad heroic, given the president who nominated him opposed the FBI probe.
Well, he and Republicans had an epic failure of imagination: Instead, they were forced reluctantly and publicly into what should have been a fairly easy-to-anticipate moderate compromise: agree to a vote after a quick FBI probe.
Instead of looking hungry for truth, Kavanaugh heads into the week looking fearful of findings.
There's a reason for this miscalculation:
Republicans, from the earliest days of the allegations, were overly confident they could just jam this through, several people involved the process tell us.
They thought he would be better defending himself — and that Dr. Ford would seem less credible.
Republicans treated this like a bare-knuckles political fight. They calculated a Fox News appearance, a Trump endorsement, a headstrong Mitch McConnell, a fired-up base, a fast vote would hold the party together.
They're such serious statemen aren't they? It's so reassuring that such people are running the country.
But as this points out, they had good reason to assume that they would win a bare-knuckled fight. If you don't care about the legitimacy of the court then that's really all it comes down to. And since they have completely given up on the legitimacy of the presidency and even their own institution, it follows that the court would be no different. These are people who don't even care that a corrupt buffoon is leading their party and that he was installed in the presidency with the help of a foreign adversary. Why would they care about this?
The Democrats don't have the votes. Why would they have ever thought that Jeff Flake of all people would step up?
.
